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Hadewijch: The Complete Works (Classics of Western Spirituality)

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Bad cover, great book. Hadewijch, a 13th cent. beguine, is the mystic for all times. She walks us through the methodology of Christ who came for all women. She believes in love, lives for love and demonstrates the ramifications of rejection that necessarily ensue when one is devoted to such a path. She never lets love down. She maps a Zen-like cartography of the suffering that accompanies a life devoted to unconditional love, but gives it minimal value. The benefits of a life lived for others far outweigh the temporary discomfort of ego-amputation. She writes letters, poems in stanzas, visions and poems in couplets. Here is a sample of encouragement from one of her letters:

{p.50} Serve nobly, wish for nothing else, and fear nothing else and let Love freely take care of herself! For Love rewards to the full, even though she often comes late. Let no doubt or disappointment ever turn you away from performing acts of virtue; let no ill success cause you to fear that you yourself will not come to conformity with God. You must not doubt this, and you must not believe in men on earth, saints, or angels, even if tey work wonders (Gal. 1:8); for you were called early, and your heart feels, at least sometimes, that you are chosen, and that God has begun to sustain your soul in abandonment.

As we await eagerly the soon publication of a new biography of Reverend Mother Benedict Duss, Founder of the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut, let us revisit other publications which have flown from that wonderful profound and pure source of life.

The cover and chapter headings of this present volume are beautifully and meaningfully illuminated by the great artist and Benedictine nun of that Abbey, Mother Placid Dempsey, OSB. Please view the inside illustrations iconically as reflecting the visions of mystical love reported so well by the Belgium 13th century Catholic nun Hadewijch, of whom so little remains but her profound mystical writings.

We know so much of Saint Teresa of Avila, whose report of similar esctatic visions of mystical Love are even famously depicted in sculture in Rome. Yet of Hadewijch we know so little biographically, and have her only major work, her complete writings, including poetry, letters and prose, preserved for us now, translated and edited by the very able hand of Mother Columba (nee Elizabeth) Hart of the Abbey of Regina Laudis, as intelligent, spiritual, solidly theological and scholarly as an American Dorothy L. Sayers.

Hadewijch passes a much more painful vision of mystical Love, as she opens herself to experiencing the pain of a profound Love in exile, awaiting the earnestly longed for Divine Beloved. Hadewijch sees that as we grow in generous Love, as described in the sixth chapter of Saint Luke, loving generously those we most have reason to hate, so do we grow ever loser to the Divine Beloved, God, and capable of receiving God's infinite and pure love.

For example, in this comprehensive and excellent volume's page 103, we read:
I will tell you without beating around the bush: Be satisfied with nothing less than Love. (. . .) Never must any difficulty hinder you from serving people, be they insignificant or important, sick or healthy. And the sicker they are, and the fewer friends they have, the more readily must you serve them. And always bear with aliens willingly. As for all who slander you, contradict them not. And be desirous to associate with all who scorn you, for they make the way of Love broader for you.

As you can see from this citation, Mother Columba`s able translation makes this 13th century Belgian mystic`s words, exhortations and spirituality immediately comprehensible and applicable for us now in the new millenium. Hadewijch was a contemplative nun of the Beguine women`s movement which focussed on the mystery of Love mysticism, as Mother Columba fully and understandably explains in this excellent book of the Catholic Paulist Press`s Classics of Western Spirituality series, which also includes major works on, for example, Julian of Norwich, Saint Bonaventure, Origen, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Catherine of Siena, etc., whose names are so familiar but writings, teachings and spirituality less so.

I highly recommend this now quarter century old work by Mother Columba presenting this 13th century mystic as a way to perceive a truly Catholic way to God unconfused by our modern and uncertain times. Strongly recommended for everyone who seeks the path to God`s Divine and Infinite and Merciful and Compassionate Love, measured out to us in the same measure which we give to others, in the same measure of which we are capable, as Jesus reminds us in the Gospel of Saint Luke.